Child abuse vis-a-vis abortion

A friend pointed me to an article in our local paper (the real reason I was on the website) concerning a meeting of researchers in Portsmouth, NH where one of the topics of discussion was a measured decrease in child abuse rates. While one would normally cheer such news, and I do, some of the factors cited border on sickening:

Factors cited by researchers to explain the drop include the legalization of abortion and decreasing fertility rates, which reduce the number of unwanted children.

Of course, there are others such as economic growth and a decrease in single-parent homes which are at least in and of themselves good things. But to suggest abortion as a positive force in society is just beyond the pale; it reeks of the earlier research linking an increase in abortion rates among black women to a decrease in the crime rate - just utterly disgusting. I'd surmise that we would decrease incidences of child abuse at a significantly greater rate by ensuring everyone is reminded of the inherent and infinite worth of each soul as a child of God than could ever be achieved by just killing them in utero. Even my son understands that much - but then, he hasn't spent his whole life trying to justify a lie.